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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the level of new socialist countryside (NSC) construction among different provinces in China. China prioritized a NSC reform policy in 2005 to address the growing disparities in incomes and living standards between rural and urban populations. These policies are evaluated to measure the extent of effective reform concerning farmer, agricultural, and rural economic development.

An index system is developed and factor analysis is performed to describe the relative contributions of economic reform. Aggregate index scores are computed to rank provincial progress.

Rankings indicate the progression of rural economic reform is moderate, at best, and mostly isolated to well‐developed eastern provinces. Reform growth is also uneven across similarly rural provinces, indicating a need for continued attention in these poorer areas.

Continued applications of the index and scoring procedure developed here will provide useful insights as time progresses and reform efforts continue.